Editor's Comment

Editorial: Why customers are primed to expect more in delivery

Yesterday saw the culmination of Amazon’s 2018 Prime Day, 36 hours of special deals for customers in a self-generated peak by Amazon itself for those of its customers that have signed up for the Prime service. The event didn’t go without hitches after web outages hit the promotional event.

Of course as well as rewarding customers already signed up to Prime – which includes unlimited free delivery – the day is designed to boost sign-ups too and the company is likely to have once again added to the 100 million subscribers it revealed earlier this year were already signed up to Prime.

Amazon has become a default option for shopping, further evidenced by a new survey out this week which says that the site is the starting point for more than half of shoppers, whilst its delivery promises have set broader expectations too.

We have news this week of the ambitions of Oddbox for expansion. The wonky veg delivery box specialist is looking for investment to expand beyond its south London heartland as it looks to deliver veg that would otherwise end up as waste. It claims to have already saved 150 tonnes of food waste from products that previously wouldn’t have sold before the trend for wonky veg was embraced by customers.

Talking of trends embraced by customers then we all know the popularity of click and collect – amongst both retailers and customers alike. But new research from Qmatic suggests that many retailers could still do more to maximise the instore opportunities it offers to engage and ultimately upsell to customers.

New research from the Royal Mail shows the delivery preferences of French customers this week – showing that they are more likely to want their goods delivered to convenience stores than their international counterparts, according to the report. It says that one in four online shoppers have purchased from a UK site in the last three months.

And in the US we have another remote access trial with UPS now using a smart access device to get into apartment blocks – though not individual apartments – to delivery packages.

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